And the Academy Award Goes To…
I was doing housework last night, so I decided to have the Academy Awards playing in the background as I tidied. This was the first time in years that I had watched or listened to it. One thing that I had forgotten was how moved I usually get when some of the less-known recipients receive their awards. I’m a big softy.
In horror, Pan’s Labryinth picked up half of the awards it was nominated for, including Best Achievement in Make-up, Best Achievement in Art Direction and Best Achievement in Cinematography. The major category it was up for, Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, was won by The Lives of Others. I’ve heard great things about that movie, and hope to catch it sometime soon. The only other notably creepy nominee was Monster House, which slipped into the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year category and lost out to Happy Feet.
Ennio Morricone received his honorary Academy Aawrd, and I got chills when they played the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Oooeeeoooeeeooo wa wa wa. Clint Eastwood presented the award, and as he rattled off a list of some of Morricone’s more memorable films I swear he slipped Red Sonja in there. Probably the best part of the show. I can just imagine Clint kicking back with some brewskies and relaxing with sword and sorcery b-movies. Morricone’s contributions to horror received no love in the montage, but they did mention The Thing and Exorcist II - The Heretic in the title scrawl. Congratulations, maestro!
Other small horror-related moments included mentions of Darren McGavin, Richard Fleischer and others in the montage of the recently deceased, as well as Forest Whitaker giving a shout-out to drive-ins during his acceptance speech for Best Actor. I bet Joe Bob Briggs was happy.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
As a rule, I never watch the Oscars, but after checking the imdb halfway through I discovered I was kicking ass in my first year joining the office pool, so I decided to tune in (ended up coming in second!).
The only thing I really paid attention to besides my picks was the tribute. And yeah, Clint mentioned Red Sonja, heh. I think I saw Orca in the crawl too. It would have been mind-blowingly great to see them pull out really memorable scores like Danger: Diabolik, My Name Is Nobody, Navajo Joe or Grand Slam. Sure, I know they would never do that, but I couldn’t have imagined that the montage would be so flat-out lame. Just one musical sting from TGTB&TU? No “Ecstacy of Gold” or anything from Once Upon a Time in the West? They didn’t even play the memorable theme from The Untouchables! I mean, the man has done over 500 film scores in 45 years. Nah, they would rather celebrate his work by showing clips from Bugsy and bringing out Celine Dion to croon new made-up lyrics overtop one of his instrumental themes.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I posted my Oscar liveblog here, if you’re interested: http://louisfowler.blogspot.com/2007/02/louis-liveblogs-oscars.html
February 28th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Thanks for confirming the Red Sonja mention, Paul. I swear, I thought I was losing my mind. I can only imagine that editing together a montage for Morricone would be daunting. You’re bound to leave out someone’s favourite.
I caught your liveblogging, Louis. It probably would have hit me harder if I hadn’t intentionally stayed as far away from the theatre while the winners were being shown.